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Thursday, January 26, 2006

KIP and FOs in NOLA

Coming up for air after my first several weeks in my new job, I finally took advantage of Ray Whiting's invitation to the Southern Purls Knitter's Meetup at Cafe Luna in New Orleans. Cafe Luna is an independent coffeehouse at the intersection of Magazine Street and Nashville Avenue, ensconced in the larger section of a sprawling, subdivided Victorian house with a huge porch to enjoy when the weather is fine, which is precisely twenty-seven days of each year, those days drawn at random by the Weather Goddess between Halloween and St. Patrick's Day.

Of course, I did not have a face to put with any name (not even a description!) when I passed through the doors of this venerable neighborhod institution, but when I spotted a male human wearing this vest, I did what any other person who reads KnitU would have done:

I said, "Hi, Ray!And was not incorrect.

Ray, will you please identify the nice knitter posng with you? I was immediately introduced to an entire roomful of new-to-me knitters and was swamped with a truckload of names. There were 23 knitters present, some brand-new and others with decades of knitting under their belts. Here are a few of them:

I can't put faces with names at present, but I hope to remedy this situation at future meetings .

Many Southern Purls knitters are working on items for Bundle Up New Orleans to distribute hats, gloves and other warm accessories to those in need for the remainder of the winter.

Approaching Finished Object status is a vest I am knitting for my Mom's birthday. I've completed it up to the armpits. Whoops, sorry, Moms don't have armpits, they have underarms. So it's finished up to the underarms. TonightI divide fore and aft for a cardigan front. Fronts first, then the back, and I shall be done.

It is not quite as pink as it looks in this photo. It is more of a true mauve. I am having issues with the flash on this digital camera, which is entirely different from the flash on an old-fashioned manual camera. I still don't comprehend the lack of proper F-stops.

On to Finished Objects.

Here is one of our cats, Seven, modeling the red cotton perle shawl I just finished.

Okay, I still need to tuck in the loose ends and block it, but it's done, anyway. I will provide a blocked photo later.

Both Seven, who is an exceedingly large cat, and the shawl are deployed across the only full-size quilt I have ever finished. It's not a true quilt, in that I did not sew together lots of itty-bitty pieces of fabric and then quilt them. What I did was this: I bought two white sheets and tie-dyed them to make a duvet for a warm but bedraggled commercial quilt, and then I got tired of the old quilt shifting around inside the new duvet, so I tie-quilted it. For the past several years it has served us well.

Below is a closer view of the stitchwork. You may remember the first few inches of this shawl from my blog archives at the beginning of the summer of 2005, which was my inflight knitting for a conference in the days before I was distracted by Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. It is a deep blood-red but, as stated above, I am having some issues with overflash on my digital camera, even when I use the zoom properly.

More photos of finished and, hopefully, blocked items will be coming soon to a blog near you as I hurry to finish items both for Mom's birthday and also so I can be ready to participate in the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics. To enter the Knitting Olympics, visit Steph's fabulous blog at: www. yarnharlot.ca/blog/ Right now, as the official representative of the Cajun-American Knitting Team, I am in training.Mambocat